"Here's a list of the criminals we've smacked around recently. Satisfied with our service?"

The Final Fantasy XI team is back with another special task force update, bringing you the latest info on what they're doing to fight the good fight against farmers and gold sellers.

As has been mentioned in previous Special Task Force reports, problems regarding third party access to players' account information have become more and more common. Even if ones account is compromised only once, all of that player's characters could be deleted and all gil and items lost.
Viewing suspicious web sites linked on gaming websites or blogs, as well as downloading files from these sites, is believed to be the main cause of this unauthorized access. A player's computer becomes infected with a Trojan horse or keylogger and before he realizes it, his PlayOnline ID and password have been stolen.

We are currently working on a method to restore edited account details and lost items, but there are a few preventative measures to help protect ones account. The following are a few such countermeasures that Windows users can use to protect against unauthorized access.